A WOMAN'S WAY

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1686, 22 June 1904, Page 12

A WOMAN'S WAY

(By John B. Oxford.)

They sat on the end of the pier, watching the waves flash, opalescent tints in the moonlight. The notes of the Marine band, struggling through the evening concert on the piazza of the San Marco, came faintly out. to them. “Don’t you feel the least qualms at the thought of leaving 10-morrow?” the girl asked lightly. “The deepest,” the man responded gravely, “jbut then, the end comes to all things, you know—and it comes rather quickly to one’s funds at these winter resorts.” Tiie girl laughed. “For a man that has thrown his money about broadcast ,as you have, it seems to me you’re growing very saving all at once/” she said. “I sha’n’t throw much more money broadcast,” he said grimly. “Good for you, Tod!” she cried approvingly. “It’s really time you took life seriously.” “I shan’t waste any more money,” he said slowly, “for the simple reason I can’t, and I shall take life seriously because I’m forced to it;” “Tod,” she said quickly, catching some grim hidden meaning in his words, “what is it ? What has happened ?” “Oh, nothing much,” he said quietly, “except that after to-night you will he relieved of my society. To-morrow I face the world with a clean slate. I shall have a taste of earning my daily bread.”

‘You don’t mean,” —she began in amazement. c ‘That’s just what I do _ mean,” he said. ‘Those western "failures have wiped me clean oft' the map. I haven t a cent in the world, and consequently I can’t afford to stay longer at an expensive place like this.” The girl clasped her little hands together and knit her brows. She seemed trying to grasp the full import of Ins words. , , . % “It’s awful!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t it?” he said dryly. “And you’re going home to-morrow ?” she asked. ■ . _ ~ , - “Home?,” 'He laughed recklessly.

“My dear child;, why on earth should I go home? There’s absolutely nothing there for me. Even worse; there are a hundred and one men who have been waiting for the chance to jump on me when I’m down. HomeP Well, I should rather say not. Bentley has offered me a job on his rubber reserve in South America. I’m going there tomorrow.”

The girl looked at his face turned to hers in the moonlight. It was a strong, determined face—the face of a man who asks odds of no one. She felt a sudden tightening of her throat. “When did you know this P”' she asked him.

“The day after I came here,” he said. “Perhaps you recall, it. YVe went to Spider Pond that afternoon, and you rallied me for being stupid.” "And yet you have stayed on here for two weeks,” she said accusingly. “I have stayed as long as the money I had with me—all the money I had in the world for all that matter, lasted.” he said. "Wasn’t that rather imprudent?” she asked. ‘ls it imprudent for a man who is going to a perdition of a wilderness to * drain his cup of happiness to the last dregs before he ! leaves?” said he. ‘‘Perhaps not,” she admitted. He threw hia cigar into the water, and watched it float lazily away .on the tide. “I wanted you to know all these things before I went,” said he, “and I wanted to tell you some other things. That is why I brought you out here where it is quiet. Hirst,, will'you kindly slip off that ring and give it to me ?” "Do you think I am that sort?” she asked hotly. - “Do you think I promised to marry you to desert you at a time like this ?” “I know,” he argued, “that is very noble of you. But remember what this means—years and years of waiting, probably. A man can lose in a day what it takes a lifetime to replace—what can sometimes never be replaced. I can’t subject you to such conditions. You are young and the doors of the world are open to you. It may be hard now, but you’ll forget me presently. It is better that you should.” ‘Tod 1” There was a world of reproach in her voice. “Better give it back to me,” he advised. She covered her face with her hands and began to sob. He watched her with all a man’s helplessness at such a moment.

“I —I thought you cared more than that,” she said, chokingly. “Oared?” he said, wildly, “cared? Good God! Have you any idea how much I care? Let me tell you, then. I have cared so much I have stayed here until T prqp.veli-mgh penniless. Come what might.’ I was bound to be with you until' the last cent was gone. I have stayed until there is nothing left —until it becomes necessary for me to go over to the cown to-morrow to pawn mj evening clothes, and watch, to get my passage mtjney down there. I have cared like the desperate gambler who plays the game to his last farthing. That’s the way I cared,” he ended hoarsely.

The man and girl faced each other in silence ; he with tense, drawn face; she with a wonderful light in her eyes. She drew the ring from her finger and.laid it in his big, brown hand. “You are wise,” he said heartily. She looked at him searchingly. “I give it back on one condition,” she

said. “And that?” f “You must pawn it.” “Pawn it?” he gasped., “Not this. I can’t;”

“You must,” she said. “Will you tell me why I must?” he said, watching it flash in the dim light. “To —to pay my passage down there with you, Tod,” she Laid, with burning cheeks.